Death + afterlife

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Michelangelo, Medici Chapel (New Sacristy)

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Tomb of the Scipios and the sarcophagus ...

Jacques-Germain Soufflot, Church of Ste-Geneviève (now Le Panthéon), 1755-90, Paris (France) — […]

Soufflot, The Panthéon (Church of Ste-Geneviève), Paris

Domenico di Michelino, Dante holding the Divine Comedy, 1465 (Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence) — […]

Dante’s Divine Comedy in Late Medieval and ...

Fresco in the former Abbey of Saint-André-de-Lavaudieu, France, 14th century, depicting the plague personified as a woman, she "carries arrows that strike those around her, often in the neck and armpits—in other words, places where the buboes commonly appeared" (Franco Mormando, Piety and Plague: from Byzantium to the Baroque, Truman State University Press, 2007). — […]

The Black Death

Sutton Hoo Ship Burial (detail) — […]

Sutton Hoo Ship Burial

Catacomb of Priscilla (detail) — […]

Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome

Dipylon Amphora (detail) — […]

Dipylon Amphora

The Treasury of Atreus — […]

The Treasury of Atreus

Grave stele of Hegeso (detail) — […]

Grave stele of Hegeso

Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial (detail) — […]

Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Jade Cong — […]

Jade Cong

Hunefer's Judgement in the presence of Osiris (detail) — […]

Hunefer’s Judgement in the presence of Osiris

Pietro Cavallini, The Last Judgment (detail) — […]

Pietro Cavallini, The Last Judgment

Giotto, The Last Judgment, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (detail) — […]

Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 4 of ...

The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (detail) — […]

The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia

Claus Sluter (with Claus de Werve), Mourners (detail) — […]

Claus Sluter (with Claus de Werve), Mourners

Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living — […]

Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death ...

Hieronymus Bosch, Last Judgment Triptych (detail) — […]

Hieronymus Bosch, Last Judgment Triptych

Last Judgment Tympanum — […]

Last Judgment, Tympanum, Cathedral of St. Lazare, ...

Sir John Everett Millais, The Vale of Rest (detail) — […]

Sir John Everett Millais, The Vale of ...

Gustav Klimt, Death and Life (detail) — […]

Gustav Klimt, Death and Life

Michelangelo, Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel, altar wall, fresco, 1534-1541 (Vatican City, Rome) — […]

Michelangelo, Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel

Detail, Haniwa: Tomb Sculpture of a Seated Warrior, Japan, late Tumulus period, c. 500-600 C.E., coil-built eathenware with applied decoration, 31 x 14 3/8 x 15 inches / 78.7 x 36.5 x 38.1 cm (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) — […]

Haniwa Warrior

Caravaggio, Death of the Virgin (detail) — […]

Caravaggio, Death of the Virgin

Gustave Courbet, A Burial at Ornans (detail) — […]

Gustave Courbet, A Burial at Ornans

Eugène Delacroix, Scene of the massacre at Chios; Greek families awaiting death or slavery, 1824 Salon, oil on canvas, 164" × 139" (419 cm × 354 cm) (Musée du Louvre, Paris) — […]

Eugène Delacroix, Scene of the Massacre at ...

Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus, 1827, oil on canvas, 12 ft 10 in x 16 ft 3 in. (3.92 x 4.96m) (Musée du Louvre, Paris) — […]

Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Saturn Devouring One Of His Sons (detail) — […]

Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring One Of His ...

Pierre Le Gros the Younger, Stanislas Kostka on His Deathbed — […]

Pierre Le Gros the Younger, Stanislas Kostka ...

Rogier van der Weyden, The Last Judgment Polyptych (detail) — […]

Rogier van der Weyden, The Last Judgment

Reliquary Guardian Figure (detail) — […]

Female Reliquary Guardian Figure (Fang peoples)—video

Funeral banner of Lady Dai (Xin Zhui) (detail) — […]

Funeral banner of Lady Dai (Xin Zhui)

Käthe Kollwitz, Memorial Sheet of Karl Liebknecht (Gedenkblatt für Karl Liebknecht), 1919-1920, Woodcut heightened with white and black ink, 37.1 × 51.9 cm (Art Institute of Chicago) — […]

Käthe Kollwitz, In Memoriam Karl Liebknecht

Carlo Carrà, Funeral of the Anarchist Galli (I funerali del anarchico Galli), 1910-11, oil on canvas, 198.7 x 259.1 cm (The Museum of Modern Art, New York) — […]

Carlo Carrà, Funeral of the Anarchist Galli

Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1770, oil on canvas, 152.6 x 214.5 cm (National Gallery of Canada) — […]

Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe

Life-Death Figure (front), c. 900-1250, Huastec (found between San Vicente Tancauyalab & Tamuin, San Luis Potosi, Northern Veracruz, Mexico), sandstone with traces of pigment, 158.4 x 66 x 29.2 cm (Brooklyn Museum) — […]

Huastec: Life-Death Figure

El Greco, Burial of the Count of Orgaz, 1586–88, oil on canvas, 480 x 360 cm (Santo Tomé, Toledo, Spain) — […]

El Greco, Burial of the Count Orgaz

Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece (closed), 1510-15 — […]

Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece

Correggio, Assumption of the Virgin, 1526-30, fresco, 35' 10" x 37' 11" (Parma Cathedral, Parma) — […]

Correggio, Assumption of the Virgin

Naked men and women screaming while being attacked by demons (detail), Luca Signorelli, The Damned Cast into Hell, 1499-1504, fresco, 23' wide (San Brizio chapel, Orvieto Cathedral, Orvieto, Italy) Naked men and women screaming while being attacked by demons (detail), Luca Signorelli, The Damned Cast into Hell, 1499-1504, fresco, 23' wide (San Brizio chapel, Orvieto Cathedral, Orvieto, Italy) — […]

Luca Signorelli, The Damned Cast into Hell

Nude (detail), Paul Gauguin, Spirit of the Dead Watching, 1892, oil on burlap mounted on canvas, 116.05 x 134.62 x 13.34 cm (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY) — […]

Paul Gauguin, Spirit of the Dead Watching

Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece (open), completed 1432, oil on wood, 11 feet 5 inches x 15 feet 1 inch (open), Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. Note: Just Judges panel on the lower left is a modern copy (photo: Closer to Van Eyck) — […]

Jan Van Eyck, The Ghent Altarpiece

Taj Mahal, Agra, India, 1632-53 (photo: Mathew Knott, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) — […]

The Taj Mahal

Sir John Everett Millais, Ophelia (detail) — […]

Sir John Everett Millais, Ophelia

Palmyrene funerary relief of Viria Phoebe and Gaius Vurus, c. 50-150 C.E., limestone, 47.5 x 52 x 25 cm © Trustees of the British Museum — […]

Palmyrene Funerary Portraiture

Tombs along the Via Appia, Rome — […]

Roman funeral rituals and social status: The ...

Detail of central niche on rear wall, Tomb of the Reliefs, late 4th or early 3rd century B.C.E., Necropolis of Banditaccia (Cerveteri), Italy (photo, CC BY-SA 2.0) — […]

Tomb of the Reliefs

Sarcophagus of the Spouses, Etruscan, c. 520-510 B.C.E., painted terracotta (Musée du Louvre) — […]

Sarcophagus of the Spouses (Louvre)

Death Mask from innermost coffin, Tutankhamun’s tomb, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, c. 1323 B.C.E., gold with inlay of enamel and semiprecious stones (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) (photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0) — […]

Tutankhamun’s tomb (innermost coffin and death mask)

King Menkaure (Mycerinus) and queen, 2490-2472 B.C.E., Greywacke, overall: 142.2 x 57.1 x 55.2 cm, 676.8 kg / 56 x 22 1/2 x 21 3/4 inches, 1492.1 pounds (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) — […]

King Menkaure (Mycerinus) and queen

Pyramid of Khafre (Photo: Dr. Amy Calvert) — […]

The Great Pyramids of Giza